I've been building this car very slowly over the past 3 years. Some of you have seen some pieces of this build before but I thought I should start a garage thread as its raining and I also dislocated my shoulder two days ago so am sore as well.

I started this build by buying myself an XE sedan off Ebay for $500. It was a 302 manual with loads of new pieces, especially on the engine and in the driveline. I was even able to drive it home from Sydney. I only wanted this as a donor car as I wanted to build a ute. I stripped the car completely and started out to rebuild the Clevo.

I started to pick up new parts for a complete rebuild of the engine. First off I scored a 10/10 351 4MAB crank removed from a '69 Mach 1. This was ground out to 20/20 along with the block being bored to 40 thou. I scored some ACL flat tops to run at 11:1 on LPG with the 2V open chamber heads which were new on the XE with 4V valves and flowed to 500hp. I had no intention of running a straight petrol car.

After quite some time, maybe 6 months or so I was getting close to finishing the engine build but still had no car to put it in.



After some time and many trips to look at cheap pieces of crap to start a build with I ended up picking up a '91 model GL XF ute for $400. One of my first cars I ever rebuilt was an XF 6cyl and always wanted to put an 8 in it. Guess I'm already reliving my youth in my mid 20's. I wasn't real photo crazy and didn't get any photo's of it before starting out any work. So the first pic I have is of it with a set of Pre-AU BA XR 17's I picked up for $400. I had also started to remove the body panels to start the chop and repairs. The ute was a cementers work ute, pretty straight considering but under the tray around the fuel tank was completely full of sand. Of cause this rusted everything out but the rest of the car had minimal cancer.



I removed and filled the tonneau cover clips as I wanted to fit a hard cover.
The worse part of the rust was on the bottom of both side pillars. I had never done any major rust removal before so there was only one way to learn. This is the result after plating the huge hole. I had never really used a MIG before either so that too was a learning experience. A light skim of bog and it all came up pretty original. From memory it took 11 separate shaped mild steel plates.



I had a uni project to do and we could basically do what ever we wanted. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and document one of the build processes on my ute. I wanted to redo the tray, remove the fuel tank as well as any rust. This turned into a huge project but was well worth it. I extended the rear cabin to have some storage space behind the seats. All those with utes know how crap it is to not have anywhere to keep anything. I also wanted to utilise the fuel tank area so I put in some doors in the tray floor. You can never have too much storage space.

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Last edited by ashcook on Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Last edited by ashcook on Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I planned to carpet the tailgate once it was painted at a later date. The interior was carpeted with a grey felt. I also installed some 6x0 Panasonic speakers into the sides. They fitted in great, and look nice and neat. You can now see how much extra storage area there is behind the seats.

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In the meantime of the tray mods I picked up a set of black buckets from some car we had no idea of what it was. They were slim and neat fitting and the front rail mounts even lined up. the rear one had to be extended about 40mm to reach the bolt holes. I also picked up an XC centre d**k seat and had it reupholstered to match the buckets. I didn't want a centre console so I could fit one of my kids in the middle. I also put in a new felt carpet and made a hole so the shifter could come up through later.

I took out the old 6 cyl now along with the column shift auto. Along with that came the dash so I could fit the manual pedal box, modify the heater box to suit the Clevo and add a new dash pad and S-pack speedo. Here's the result with a stupid looking chrome /timber wheel I got in the original XE. Something better will come up later.



I fitted a new stereo and picked up this really cool 1952 Ford pickup shifter knob. It has the original V8 emblem embossed in the top. Its really different, but old school. Thought it would go well with the old 351.

I don't have any pics of the engine after I installed the Clevo and single rail box. But here is one after I put in a new MSD ignition system. The old one I think was a Chinese one and fluctuated all over the place. It was hard to set the timing and wouldn't idle smoothly. I also put in a MSD 6AL and MSD on-the-fly timing adjuster and mounted them behind my drivers seat.





As you can see I am running a Impco 425 carb. I also scored the brand new black 351 Cleveland alloy rocker covers from an old guy in the states who said he had them in storage for many years. I'm also running a set of Genie's with a twin 2.5 inch system. scored that for $150 out of the local paper.

Once up and running and after I installed the LPG system, I needed to go through engineering. This wasn't that bad and I got a lot of things signed off in the process. I was also able to collect the 2 grand rebate for the LPG which then covered my rego and engineering costs.

It was time now to upgrade the old dash. I had a donor EL XR6 to do all this with. Some of you guys have helped me out with this but here is the link. This was one of the best mods so far, I'm stoked with it. I also changed out the diff to a 90k 3.45 LSD from the donor XR. Very good upgrade!!

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=68838

I also managed to score a neat little trim for the bottom of the EL dash. I scored this thanks to Benj and it tidies up well as I don't plan to use a console.

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Last edited by ashcook on Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Another mod I did over time was replace the XF front with an XH XR one. Took me ages to source a bonnet and guards. In the end the ones I got are not great but what do you do? I scored the EF XR bar a long time ago and kept it in the shed. I now have an EL XR bar that will soon be fitted instead. I had to cut the front end off the XF in front of the shock towers and weld into place an EL one. THis took quite a lot of time and trial and error. I still need to adjust the gaurd spacing but it is getting close. This is the only photo I have but will update was I put on the EL nose cone.

Along with this went in an EL radiator with twin thermo fans. The conversion does not allow the old XF radiator to fit in as the support has dropped roughly 80mm. This is still not the best set-up as it does not hold enough coolant and runs on the warm side of things and I'm just not happy. Still trying to find a better solution.

Another issue is clearance of the air cleaner. My new Edlebrock one was no where near fitting. I am also not happy with the air flow. LPG loves cool clean air and this set-up with the 351 and XH front just doesn't allow any to get in. I'm still in the process of improving this and will update when I come up with a happy medium.

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Hmm nice ute you have there ash. Have you considered a shaker to gulp in cool air for your 425?

Cheers mate. The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is finding anything that clears the MSD dizzy. Its huge. I bought a 9 inch round filter and was going to try with some type of cold air induction. I really did not want to go through the bonnet. Wanted to keep it as much of a sleeper as possible. I hate getting attention on the road. Not only by people eyeing things off but also the cops. Already had someone in the cabin after a two minute walk into coles. Came back and found my door open.

go the xf!

Thought you may appreciate it. When is your V8 going in?

when i can find an engine a decent one no hurry tho ive got plenty of things to work on in the meantime

the projects definitely build up, I'm terrible at starting new things before finishing others

I recently played around with a few intake pieces I had in the shed from previous cars and came up with this. I made the carby hat out of acrylic, its easy to form with a heat gun. Issue is, its too restrictive. I think it needs to be at least twice the capacity. May try the same thing but double up the piping and hat size. At least it didn't cost anything to try.

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Thats tops mate, love the work thats gone into the tray.
Good job!

A shaker would set that off nicely, and an easy way to get some cool air, too.

Cheers mate, I even got a mark of 98/100 for the result from uni. I'm pretty stoked with it.

Clearing the dizzy is the issue, I didn't realise how big they were till I fitted it up. I love the look and how well it works but I guess its all part of modifying stuff, I'll find a result eventually.

Wow nice ute, will be keepin & eye on this thread

thanks mate, hopefully will have a T5 under it soon and a few other things as well, will keep the updates coming.

Picked up a few bonuses for my ute this week. These pics are still in the original car they were fitted too. Pretty happy with the wheel, I didn't even realise it was in the car till I got it home.

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Man i love what you have done with this ute, especially the tray/cabin mods. You have done wonders with this car. The dash conversion is also very cool.

I tip my hat to you sir.